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> I genuinely don't understand people who aren't willing to learn this stuff even if they pay someone else to do it As a rich guy I knew used to say, do what y

> I genuinely don't understand people who aren't willing to learn this stuff even if they pay someone else to do it As a rich guy I knew used to say, do what you do best, and give away all the rest. I spent my 30s doing all the things you mentioned and more. There was some joy in it, I will admit, but I am vastly less wealthy than if I had focused on my consulting business and learned how to negotiate and supervise the outsourcing of those tasks. I know a lot of 'do it yourself' types and none of them are wealthy. I know a lot of wealthy people and none of them are 'do it yourself' types. It sucks to admit it, because there is a lot of 'manliness' associated with self-reliance, but it is often a foolish pursuit. Comparative advantage is real and you can use it to get ahead in life.

cycloptic 6y ago
I think you are conflating things. The idea I see behind most self-reliance is that it significantly reduces the amount of wealth needed to accomplish everyday tasks. Following that, you wouldn't see much of a need for those do-it-yourself types to accumulate wealth just for the sake of doing so.
- war1025 6y ago
  > you wouldn't see much of a need for those do-it-yourself types to accumulate wealth just for the sake of doing so. Exactly this. Money is a way to get other people to do things for you. If you are happier doing the things yourself, the money doesn't have much use. At a certain point, gaining more wealth just doesn't matter.
  - derefr 6y ago
    Some things have economies of scale. I could in theory dig minerals out of the ground, refine and distill them, and do the chemistry required to turn them into antibiotics... but that'd be about a million times more expensive (in bootstrapping monetary cost and labor) than just getting together with a bunch of people to found an oil refinery and a drug factory.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Yeah I noticed this. There are lots of kids or people who feel redundant and empty because whatever they want to do they can just buy it or hire someone else to do it for them. No need to do anything yourself but it also means nobody needs you which means people don't see anything in you other than your money. The only way you can liberate yourself from this is by getting your hands dirty yourself.
    - srtjstjsj 6y ago
      Or by taking pride in the work you do to earn the money.
      - war1025 6y ago
        I really don't think one precludes the other. You can take pride in the work you get paid for and the work you do outside of work just the same.
- 01100011 6y ago
  If only we didn't live in a world of property taxes... Wealth should not be sneered at. Wealth buys a new well for your farm. Wealth buys you tools to expand your capabilities. Wealth allows you to exploit the capabilities of society to accomplish things beyond yourself. Do you want to preserve gun or property rights so you can continue to live a self-reliant lifestyle? That takes wealth(or you can cop-out and let other people do it for you). I am well aware of the saying "sell your time to buy the time that other people sold", but that cynically omits the benefits of comparative advantage. Most HN readers time is far more valuable than a plumber or carpenter.
  - s5300 6y ago
    "Most HN readers time is far more valuable than a plumber or carpenter." I think, in the words of today's youth, the response to this is something along the lines of "Big Yikes" That's quite a staunch outlook on society. Do you like playing around in literal shit so that literal shit doesn't back up in your house? Have you automated a system to be able to do this robotically? If not, I'd suggest valuing your plumbers a bit more. Maybe somebody should be showing them these lines of thoughts so they jack up their prices for techies and extract their "value"... Jeez. I'm being snarky. But man, you're being a dick lmao.
    - phobosanomaly 6y ago
      You're not being snarky. Seems pretty on the mark.
    - bumby 6y ago
      I think part of the problem is we’ve confused (and society has disproportionately valued) what is valuable to the economy vs what is valuable to society. I think it was Penn Jillette who basically said we should most value those who we’d want around in the apocalypse. Farmers, doctors, mechanics would all be worth more than a financier. Maybe the irony is that in the coming decades they will have their comeuppance if their jobs are least likely to be automated away
      - 6y ago
bumby 6y ago
Specialization is the nature of capitalism so what you say is true. However, not everybody has the aim to optimize "getting ahead in life" in terms of accumulating the most material wealth. A propos of the linked article, I know people in the high desert former-frontier whose ideal retirement is running a lodge or campground, constantly working as a general handyman. To them, that hits on many of the things necessary to find fulfillment: creativity, mastery, autonomy, purpose. They'd rather be put to pasture than trade that for some exorbitantly paying SV gig.
- 01100011 6y ago
  And they'll say that until that wealth could have done something useful for them, like defend their freedoms from encroachment or promote causes they find valuable. Wealth is worth far more than fancy cars and fine clothing. I couldn't give a shit about expensive material possessions but I think that only an utter fool would disavow themselves of wealth. Don't be conned into thinking wealth is synonymous with frivolous, ostentatious displays and vanity.
  - bumby 6y ago
    You hit the nail on the head. Wealth isn’t about loving green pieces of paper. It’s about the freedom it provides. But from his place, he’s already doing exactly what he wants. There’s literally nothing he wants more than what he has. Now maybe that would change if his health is constrained, but as it stands he spends everyday exactly how he would spend his weekends if he was working at a 9-5. That freedom of time is all that money can ultimately provide in the best sense. However, amassing wealth by moving away from that is definitely counter-productive. Wealth is just a means to an end; if the end is already at hand it provides little to no marginal utility.
Vrondi 6y ago
If I didn't do it myself, it wouldn't be done. Not everyone has the option of hiring everything done.
- 01100011 6y ago
  If you have nothing better to do with your time then go ahead! It can be a fine choice in many situations. For many HN types whose time is far more valuable than many tradespeople, it is a financially reckless choice.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    I haven't seen skilled tradespeople that charge less than me. Sure you can hire people with zero qualifications for less than your salary but they will usually do a worse job.
AdrianB1 6y ago
I can afford to pay others to help, but at the same time I know how to do myself 90% of what I need. That means I can fix something that breaks at midnight and have a professional do a permanent fix, if needed, in the morning. I can also fix by motorcycle or mountain bike when it breaks in the middle of the mountains 20 miles from the closest village, calling for help is many times not an option due to lack of phone signal. Yes, it is nice to do only what you do best, but it's not a good idea to be ignorant of skills that may be essential sometimes.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> I know a lot of 'do it yourself' types and none of them are wealthy. You have to do the math on this carefully though. A lot of people think like this. I get paid $200 an hour, my electrician gets paid $100 an hour, therefore I should pay my electrician $100 and use the time I saved to make $200. But plenty of those jobs don't actually take an hour, even though that's the minimum billing time. So when they take ten minutes, you've got to pay the electrician $600 before you save enough time to make $200 yourself. Then you've got a transaction costs problem. You called the plumber, but now you've got to let them in, explain the problem, review the invoice, submit payment. It could take the same amount of time as doing it yourself. It could take longer. Then you've got a knowledge problem. If you take the time to understand how things work then you see warning signs, so you fix things while they're still a $5 problem instead of not understanding that it will turn into a $5000 problem. Or in reverse, not realizing that the person you're paying for services is charging you $5000 for something that could still be fixed for $5. Then you've got a tax problem. You thought you were "making" $200, but actually half of that is going to taxes, whereas 100% of the money you're spending is actually getting spent. The result is that the person who works more and pays for everything instead of doing it themselves has a higher annual income on paper, but less actual disposable income because they lose more than that to taxes and costs, and less free time because they're actually working more in reality.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  > A lot of people think like this. I get paid $200 an hour, my electrician gets paid $100 an hour, therefore I should pay my electrician $100 and use the time I saved to make $200. The flaw of course is that $200 is not opportunity cost. Your time is only worth money if you’d otherwise be working. So when I get home from my 9-5 job where I make a fixed salary, and fix my faucet, that job just got done for free. There was no opportunity cost because I don’t get paid hourly and was already done with work for the day. I’m a rather extreme DIYer, and I can confidently say I would not live the lifestyle I do if I paid people to repair my car, build my furniture, cook my food, mow my lawn, do all my home improvements, plumbing, electrical work, fix my electronics. All that labor adds up, especially in the expensive Bay Area. If you take what you’d otherwise spend on all that, starting say age 20, and instead put it into your retirement account you could probably retire 5-10 years early.

cycloptic 6y ago

I think you are conflating things. The idea I see behind most self-reliance is that it significantly reduces the amount of wealth needed to accomplish everyday tasks. Following that, you wouldn't see much of a need for those do-it-yourself types to accumulate wealth just for the sake of doing so.

war1025 6y ago
> you wouldn't see much of a need for those do-it-yourself types to accumulate wealth just for the sake of doing so. Exactly this. Money is a way to get other people to do things for you. If you are happier doing the things yourself, the money doesn't have much use. At a certain point, gaining more wealth just doesn't matter.
- derefr 6y ago
  Some things have economies of scale. I could in theory dig minerals out of the ground, refine and distill them, and do the chemistry required to turn them into antibiotics... but that'd be about a million times more expensive (in bootstrapping monetary cost and labor) than just getting together with a bunch of people to found an oil refinery and a drug factory.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Yeah I noticed this. There are lots of kids or people who feel redundant and empty because whatever they want to do they can just buy it or hire someone else to do it for them. No need to do anything yourself but it also means nobody needs you which means people don't see anything in you other than your money. The only way you can liberate yourself from this is by getting your hands dirty yourself.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    Or by taking pride in the work you do to earn the money.
    - war1025 6y ago
      I really don't think one precludes the other. You can take pride in the work you get paid for and the work you do outside of work just the same.
01100011 6y ago
If only we didn't live in a world of property taxes... Wealth should not be sneered at. Wealth buys a new well for your farm. Wealth buys you tools to expand your capabilities. Wealth allows you to exploit the capabilities of society to accomplish things beyond yourself. Do you want to preserve gun or property rights so you can continue to live a self-reliant lifestyle? That takes wealth(or you can cop-out and let other people do it for you). I am well aware of the saying "sell your time to buy the time that other people sold", but that cynically omits the benefits of comparative advantage. Most HN readers time is far more valuable than a plumber or carpenter.
- s5300 6y ago
  "Most HN readers time is far more valuable than a plumber or carpenter." I think, in the words of today's youth, the response to this is something along the lines of "Big Yikes" That's quite a staunch outlook on society. Do you like playing around in literal shit so that literal shit doesn't back up in your house? Have you automated a system to be able to do this robotically? If not, I'd suggest valuing your plumbers a bit more. Maybe somebody should be showing them these lines of thoughts so they jack up their prices for techies and extract their "value"... Jeez. I'm being snarky. But man, you're being a dick lmao.
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    You're not being snarky. Seems pretty on the mark.
  - bumby 6y ago
    I think part of the problem is we’ve confused (and society has disproportionately valued) what is valuable to the economy vs what is valuable to society. I think it was Penn Jillette who basically said we should most value those who we’d want around in the apocalypse. Farmers, doctors, mechanics would all be worth more than a financier. Maybe the irony is that in the coming decades they will have their comeuppance if their jobs are least likely to be automated away
    - 6y ago

bumby 6y ago

Specialization is the nature of capitalism so what you say is true. However, not everybody has the aim to optimize "getting ahead in life" in terms of accumulating the most material wealth. A propos of the linked article, I know people in the high desert former-frontier whose ideal retirement is running a lodge or campground, constantly working as a general handyman. To them, that hits on many of the things necessary to find fulfillment: creativity, mastery, autonomy, purpose. They'd rather be put to pasture than trade that for some exorbitantly paying SV gig.

01100011 6y ago
And they'll say that until that wealth could have done something useful for them, like defend their freedoms from encroachment or promote causes they find valuable. Wealth is worth far more than fancy cars and fine clothing. I couldn't give a shit about expensive material possessions but I think that only an utter fool would disavow themselves of wealth. Don't be conned into thinking wealth is synonymous with frivolous, ostentatious displays and vanity.
- bumby 6y ago
  You hit the nail on the head. Wealth isn’t about loving green pieces of paper. It’s about the freedom it provides. But from his place, he’s already doing exactly what he wants. There’s literally nothing he wants more than what he has. Now maybe that would change if his health is constrained, but as it stands he spends everyday exactly how he would spend his weekends if he was working at a 9-5. That freedom of time is all that money can ultimately provide in the best sense. However, amassing wealth by moving away from that is definitely counter-productive. Wealth is just a means to an end; if the end is already at hand it provides little to no marginal utility.

Vrondi 6y ago

If I didn't do it myself, it wouldn't be done. Not everyone has the option of hiring everything done.

01100011 6y ago
If you have nothing better to do with your time then go ahead! It can be a fine choice in many situations. For many HN types whose time is far more valuable than many tradespeople, it is a financially reckless choice.
- imtringued 6y ago
  I haven't seen skilled tradespeople that charge less than me. Sure you can hire people with zero qualifications for less than your salary but they will usually do a worse job.

AdrianB1 6y ago

I can afford to pay others to help, but at the same time I know how to do myself 90% of what I need. That means I can fix something that breaks at midnight and have a professional do a permanent fix, if needed, in the morning. I can also fix by motorcycle or mountain bike when it breaks in the middle of the mountains 20 miles from the closest village, calling for help is many times not an option due to lack of phone signal. Yes, it is nice to do only what you do best, but it's not a good idea to be ignorant of skills that may be essential sometimes.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> I know a lot of 'do it yourself' types and none of them are wealthy. You have to do the math on this carefully though. A lot of people think like this. I get paid $200 an hour, my electrician gets paid $100 an hour, therefore I should pay my electrician $100 and use the time I saved to make $200. But plenty of those jobs don't actually take an hour, even though that's the minimum billing time. So when they take ten minutes, you've got to pay the electrician $600 before you save enough time to make $200 yourself. Then you've got a transaction costs problem. You called the plumber, but now you've got to let them in, explain the problem, review the invoice, submit payment. It could take the same amount of time as doing it yourself. It could take longer. Then you've got a knowledge problem. If you take the time to understand how things work then you see warning signs, so you fix things while they're still a $5 problem instead of not understanding that it will turn into a $5000 problem. Or in reverse, not realizing that the person you're paying for services is charging you $5000 for something that could still be fixed for $5. Then you've got a tax problem. You thought you were "making" $200, but actually half of that is going to taxes, whereas 100% of the money you're spending is actually getting spent. The result is that the person who works more and pays for everything instead of doing it themselves has a higher annual income on paper, but less actual disposable income because they lose more than that to taxes and costs, and less free time because they're actually working more in reality.

ryandrake 6y ago
> A lot of people think like this. I get paid $200 an hour, my electrician gets paid $100 an hour, therefore I should pay my electrician $100 and use the time I saved to make $200. The flaw of course is that $200 is not opportunity cost. Your time is only worth money if you’d otherwise be working. So when I get home from my 9-5 job where I make a fixed salary, and fix my faucet, that job just got done for free. There was no opportunity cost because I don’t get paid hourly and was already done with work for the day. I’m a rather extreme DIYer, and I can confidently say I would not live the lifestyle I do if I paid people to repair my car, build my furniture, cook my food, mow my lawn, do all my home improvements, plumbing, electrical work, fix my electronics. All that labor adds up, especially in the expensive Bay Area. If you take what you’d otherwise spend on all that, starting say age 20, and instead put it into your retirement account you could probably retire 5-10 years early.